Daily Archives: August 13, 2008

“Barack Obama has a problem. He really, really doesn’t want this campaign to be about race. He wants it to be about change, President Bush, the economy, gas prices, Iraq, Afghanistan — almost anything else. But it is going to be about race, at least in part.”

Ya think? And which “part” would that be?

“That’s the lesson of recent weeks, when the McCain campaign brought up race (on the pretext that Obama had brought it up first). The Obama campaign tried desperately to change the subject but couldn’t. Once the chum was in the water, the media sharks went wild.”

Gee, Beanie — wasn’t there a story just the other day about the Great White Sharks dying out? (Along with the Great White Race, of course.) Don’t you think your remarks should be addressed to your fellow bought-and-paid-for Beltway whores?

“Obama should take that as a warning. Race will be central to this campaign because McCain needs it to be. He simply doesn’t have many other cards to play. And it will be central because every time Republicans light the match, the press will create a forest fire. Race is just too titillating to ignore.”

Got that now? Racism is a matter of “cards”. “Playing” them (Poker? Canasta? Gin Rummy?) can result in a “forest fire” (read “race riot” – insert images of Washington D.C. and Los Angeles ablaze). An of course racism is “titillating.”

“The history of post-Vietnam presidential elections is littered with Democratic nominees who thought they could run on policy and ignore symbolism. This year, the symbolism will be largely racial. Obama can’t avoid that. He needs to control the race debate instead.”

How can one debate with the symbolic? One can’t. And Beanie-Baby, like all bought-and-paid-for Beltway whores doesn’t want a debate, or even a discussion, of anything. Just a food fight.

“Already, there is reason to believe that race is weighing Obama down. A survey this year by CBS and the New York Times found that 94 percent of respondents would vote for a black presidential candidate. But when asked if “most people” would, the number dropped to 71 percent. Notre Dame political scientist David Leege estimates that 17 to 19 percent of white Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents will resist voting for Obama because he is black. That’s far more than the percentage of Republicans who may vote for Obama because he is black. And it’s a major reason that this election — despite Obama’s myriad advantages — remains close.
To blow it open, Obama needs to bring Leege’s number down.”

See? Our future is in the hands of a “political scientist” from Notre Dame. When it comes to scientists, give me Dr. Horrible every time.

“That may be possible, because even racists can be wooed. Think about it this way: Many of the voters who right now won’t vote for Obama because he’s black would probably vote for Colin Powell even though he’s black. That’s because they don’t see Powell as a racial redistributionist, a guy who would favor his community at their expense. There’s no rational reason to believe Obama would, either. But because, unlike Powell, Obama is a liberal Democrat who enjoys overwhelming black support, that’s what many racially hostile white voters assume.”

And so we’re all obliged to pay fealty to right-wing “THEY’RE GOING TO TAKE ALL OUR MONEY AWAY!!!!” hysteria, which as a rule isn’t race-based at all.

Just pathological.

“For these voters, Obama can’t make race go away by ignoring it, especially because the GOP and the media won’t. He needs to acknowledge their fears and do something dramatic to assuage them. Paradoxically, his best shot at deracializing the campaign is to explicitly make race an issue.
He can do that with a high-profile speech — and maybe a TV ad — calling for the replacement of race-based preferences with class-based ones.”

Oh yeah, like that’s going to happen. I can hear the Pattoricans screaming bloody murder about it already.

“That would confront head-on white fears that an Obama administration would favor minorities at whites’ expense. It would be a sharper, more dramatic, way of making the point that Obama has made ever since he took the national stage (but which some whites still refuse to believe): that he represents not racial division but national unity.”

“National Unity” in a country as racist and class-obsessed as this one?

“On the merits, there’s a lot to say for class-based affirmative action. Over the decades, racial preferences have played a vital role in creating a black middle class, but that middle class is now large and self-perpetuating. It is the multi-generational poor — whether urban and black or Appalachian and white — who truly need a boost today. And that’s what Obama himself seems to believe.”

Love the “seems,” Beanie.

“Arguing that his own daughters shouldn’t benefit from affirmative action, he told the Chronicle of Higher Education last year that “we should take into account white kids who have been disadvantaged and have grown up in poverty and shown themselves to have what it takes to succeed.” Some of the parents of those white kids fear voting for Obama because they think they’ll lose out. If they knew Obama’s views, they might change their mind.”

And as these views have been out on the table for some time, why haven’t the bought-and-paid-for Beltway whores mentioned them? Hey — I answered my own question!

“Race isn’t going away as a factor in American life, of course.”

Well, DUH!

” But the defining American problem of the 21st century may not be the “color line,” as W.E.B. Du Bois suggested about the 20th. In an age of growing multiculturalism and growing economic inequality, it may be the class line instead. By calling for a different kind of affirmative action, Obama could acknowledge that profound change — and help propel himself to the White House at the same time.”

Isn’t it pretty to think so? Especially in the era of Gossip Girl.

Yeah that plan of your’s is gonna fly, Beanie.

Now stand up straight and Sing Out Louise!

Whatever happened to fair dealing?
And pure ethics
And nice manners?
Why is it everyone now is a pain in the ass?
Whatever happened to class?
Class.
Whatever happened to, “Please, may I?”
And “Yes, thank you?”
And “How charming?”
Now, every son of a bitch is a snake in the grass
Whatever happened to class?
Class!
Ah, there ain’t no gentlemen
To open up the doors
There ain’t no ladies now,
There’s only pigs and whores
And even kids’ll knock ya down
So’s they can pass
Nobody’s got no class!
Whatever happened to old values?

And fine morals?
And good breeding?
Now, no one even says “oops” when they’re
Passing their gas
Whatever happened to class?
Class
Ah, there ain’t no gentlemen
That’s fit for any use
And any girl’d touch your privates
For a deuce
And even kids’ll kick your shins and give you sass
Nobody’s got no class!
All you read about today is rape and theft
Jesus Christ, ain’t there no decency left?
Nobody’s got no class
Everybody you watch
‘S got his brains in his crotch
Holy crap
Holy crap
What a shame
What a shame
What became of class?